


Lonely Youth

by not_supergirl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Boarding School, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Past Child Abuse, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, SuperCorp, all the gals are kara's honorary big sisters but alex is Alpha TM Big Sister, all the kiddos r in the same grade bc i'm gay and i said so, clark is a Jerk TM, everybody has a tragic backstory, kara is shy and angsty but still also a sunny puppy dog, kara's powers are hypersensitive, lena can sing and play the piano bc her family is pompous and aristocratic so ofc she can, lena is touch-starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-09-06 06:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8738767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_supergirl/pseuds/not_supergirl
Summary: "And so Kara Zorel is left feeling small and unwelcome in a large and unfamiliar place (but what else is new, really?)"orBoarding School AU where Clark actually tries to raise Kara, decides that he can't, and ships a small and shy Kara off to Norway instead.





	1. Stjernene og Hennes

It’s big.

Bigger than she thought it would be, and certainly bigger than the pictures in the pamphlets that Kal— _Clark_ —had given her to peruse through on the drive over had suggested it would be. She doesn’t know why she feels like this. She’s seen her fair share of big things. Hell she’s seen entire galaxies; she’s seen the towering skyscrapers of Krypton, the hulking mass of Fort Rozz. She’s even seen her own planet as it blew into pieces that careened dangerously toward her escape pod (but she’s been trying not to think about that), so really the Great Hall of Ensom Ungdom School for Girls should not feel this big.

(But it _does_. And maybe it’s just the fact that ever since puberty her lead-lined glasses haven’t been strong enough to keep the headaches caused by her enhanced vision at bay, or maybe it’s the fact that she feels so very, very small, but whatever it is, the vaulted ceilings of the Great Hall make her feel _miniscule_. The way that voices echo in here, louder for her than anyone else, make her feel microscopic, and the grand stained glass windows, the marble arches, the heavy oak double doors, they make her feel so small she may as well be nonexistent.)

She tugs the sleeves of her sweater— _genser_ , she chides herself, feeling every bit the fumbling foreigner she once more is—subconsciously past her wrists until its edges scrape the backs of her knuckles. Clark had promised her when he sent her here that it wouldn’t be like this. He had promised that this was the best, safest place for her after _the_ _incident_ , and that sure, maybe it was a boarding school all the way in Norway but most of the students were British or American anyway. They all spoke english, and they would like kara just fine. Everyone always does.

_(Did.)_

She tries to block out the memory of her begging Clark not to do it, not to sign the papers, tears streaming down her face while desperately promising that she could do better. That it would never happen again. She still sees the words _in_ _loco_ _parentis_ scrawled onto the top of the contract and they leave a sour taste on her tongue and knots in the pit of her stomach. She can still hear the way that his pen had scratched against the document, even as her fingers clung to his arm voicing words that could never be said or felt by someone other than an orphan. She remembers her tongue fumbling around old Kryptonese words to try to make him understand that this was not what she wanted.

But the papers had been signed regardless because English was Clark’s language now (as he had reminded her by gently removing the pressure of her fingers from his sleeve) and Kryptonese was now hers and hers alone. And so here she was; Kara Zorel, feeling small and unwelcome in a large and unfamiliar place (but what else was new, really?)

A voice is cleared at the front of the room and that drags Kara’s mind away from things like betrayals and custody agreements and back into the present where she tries not to wince at the way the sharp sound reverberates in her head. Her gaze travels slowly over every face in the hall before reaching a stage that beforehand she hadn’t noticed, as she had been so wrapped up in herself. She lets her eyes trek up the structure inch by agonizing inch, putting all her willpower into not seeing through it, into just looking at it the way anybody else would. She’s so happy she wants to cry when she successfully reaches the pair of black heels resting on the top of the stage without looking through it into the wall behind it and through that wall into the next building and the next into a clearing that drops suddenly down the side of a mountain into miles of forest into the nearest village and—

 _Oh_. What a voice. She doesn’t know who is speaking yet, just that someone is and that it’s wonderful. Loud without raising in volume, authoritative without being aggressive. It drips like honey, moves through the air like syrup and, unlike most other sounds in this strange place, it doesn’t bounce around between kara’s ears like a jackhammer; it sings and fills her head with memories of a time when merely existing wasn’t a chore.

She lifts her eyes to find the source of the sound, readjusting the glasses on her face out of habit more than actual necessity and finds so much more than she is looking for. A dimpled smile. Long, dark hair spilling like a waterfall over shoulders and down, probably settling somewhere around the small of the girl’s back. Creamy skin and red lips, the kind that have to be painted on. Dark eyes. Forest eyes. Eyes like galaxies and planetary nebulas and stellar nurseries giving birth to stars for the first time and Kara should know because she’s seen them with her own eyes and they do not compare. Cosmic creation is beautiful, but this girl is ethereal.

And she is looking at Kara.

Their eyes lock for a second, before the girl on stage continues to scan the crowd, searching for a single soul that has not given her their utmost attention, but Kara swears that the girl’s eyes had stayed on hers for just a bit longer than everyone else’s. But then she is clearing her throat and she is speaking again and Kara is too lost in the current of it to think about things like fractured seconds of eye contact and how they compare to other fractured seconds.

“I know for most of you none of this information is new, but nevertheless we do have new students every year and the last thing we want is for them to feel unwelcome—” and Kara feels like she’s talking to her, like she has to be. Like with that one look the girl on the stage knows all of her secrets and everything she’s been thinking for the last ten minutes. Somehow the idea is both terrifying and comforting. “—so just as last year I’d like to remind everyone that room assignments will have been posted outside on the bulletin board by now and for everyone to please _walk_ single file to go and see them.”

Everyone turns to abide her before she garners their attention once more. “Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear to anyone here,” and she gathers herself up to her full height, drawing her spine underneath her so as to appear more than she is. It is a show of dominance, a power move. “My name is Lena Luthor, and I will be your Head of Class this year. Prefects will meet with me later tonight to discuss duties, and orientation, which may I remind you is mandatory for all students, will be in the Grant Building at six. You’re dismissed.” She releases them once more and Kara doesn’t know why what this girl has just said is scandalous only that it has sparked a fierce fire of whispering. She wants to listen in, but most of it is in Norwegian and all that she can catch is the name _Lex_ being passed from one conversation to the next.

Kara is just about to duck out of the building to check her room assignment when she hears her own name amongst the unfamiliar words, and she immediately whips around to see the striking girl from the stage, Lena Luthor, discussing with another girl, this one taller and with short dark hair that stops just below her jaw line.

_"I år er det en ny jente her. Jeg kan ikke mye om henne, bare det at hun heter Kara Zor-El, hun er et år yngre enn oss, og hun har hatt en tøff fortid. Jeg har spurt om dere kan dele rom" .”_

"Whatever you say, _Storesøster.”_ the shorter haired girl responds with a mock salute. Lena glowers.

“This is serious, Alex.” she tries to reprimand, but the other girl, apparently Alex, has already begun to walk away.

Kara turns away before this “Alex” sees her and accuses her of listening in (although she doubts someone would accuse her of eavesdropping on a conversation all the way across the room) and ducks through one of the two heavy oak doors quickly.

The fresh air feels nice on her face and she pauses for a moment to take it in. The sun is still shining and she angles her face up into it, closing her eyes. Its rays feel like gulping down large breaths of air after being underwater for hours. A breeze stirs gently left and on it she can catch hints of the sea from the North, the scent of spruce forests at the base of mountains to the East, and bread baking in ovens from the village farther down South. The different smells coalesce and wash over her and it is in times like these that her powers feel like the blessing Clark keeps trying to convince her they are. She holds onto another greedy moment of the different sensations, trying to fill the crater sized hole in her that has been present ever since the day she watched her planet leave its own hole in the galaxy, before exhaling and bringing her sensations back into her immediate setting.

She opens her eyes and sees the massive throng of excited girls converging against one wall and loiters over to where they are congregated and where she assumes the room assignments have been posted. She mills around at the back until most everyone has cleared, some skipping away in glee and some grumbling about things like _“I can’t believe I got roomed with Siobhan-fucking-Smythe. I heard she’s a goddamn nightmare.”_ before Kara too approaches the board and runs her trembling index finger down it until she comes to her name. She holds her breath before checking, even though she already knows what name she’ll find in the box across from her own.

“Looks like we’re roomies.” A voice says as an arm slings over her shoulder, and she tries to repress the urge to wince on reflex before she realizes that it isn’t even present. Although nothing like the stunning girl up on stage, this new girl’s voice also seems finely attuned to kara’s hypersensitivity, and while it isn’t a relief, it’s not vexing in any way either. Kara releases a breath she didn't know she’d been holding.

Kara smiles shyly up at the other girl, (Alex, she introduces herself as after a few seconds, and Kara introduces herself too, in her meek voice.) Alex shakes Kara’s hand gently, as if it’s fragile and would shatter if she all but gripped too hard.

If only she knew.

They gather their luggage from where everyone else had left theirs in a massive pile outside the Great Hall doors, and start to walk over to the J’onnz Building where they’ll be rooming.

The conversation is mostly one-sided, with Alex contributing a lot and Kara responding with small nods and little hums of agreement, but Alex gets the feeling it’s more out of shyness than rudeness. She offers to help Kara with her luggage and, to her surprise, that gets a small laugh out of the other girl for some reason before Kara promises her that she’s got it.

Alex admits that she’s shocked, but tries not to show it. From Lena’s description of the girl she had expected someone a lot more, well, _angsty_. Lord knows she certainly had been when things had started to go south for her. Kara’s sunny—albeit shy—disposition takes her off guard. She’s not used to seeing someone seem so untainted by this world. Kara’s got an almost childlike wonder, eyes still wide and searching for magic around every turn. It’s almost as if she’s seeing earth for the very first time, every time.

It isn’t until they are dragging their bags up four flights of stairs to their room that Alex gets more of a feel for what Lena had meant, her tongue twisting around the Norwegian words with more fluency than any other girl at this school could dream of, about Kara having a rough past.

They are halfway up the second flight of stone stairs when Alex’s phone chimes loudly with individual text messages for at least five whole minutes.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Kara asks politely, if not a little inquisitively.

“Nah, it’s just my mom. She’ll keep spamming me even if I answer them. It’s so annoying. God, I hate my mom sometimes.” Alex says it in a way that is meant to be relatable, that is meant to make Kara feel included into whatever kind of joke it is that she’s making. As she watches Kara’s face darken into something forlorn, her fists clenching so tightly they shake, she realizes—though not what exactly—that she’s made a mistake.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.” Kara whispers in a way that is somehow both sad and angry at the same time. Her voice sounds like heartbreak and for a moment Alex thinks that Kara is going to cry. She feels like an ass.

“I’m sorry.” she says, and means it, almost astonished at such a fierce reaction after fifteen minutes of such light conversation. “I won’t do it again.”

Kara nods resolutely at this, eyes downcast, seemingly shocked at her outburst too, and they keep making their way up the staircase to their room. It takes a whole ‘nother flight and a half of stairs before the tension has eased and kara breaks the silence between them for the first time since they met with, “Do you think you could teach me Norwegian?”

The question feels out of left field and the fact that Kara has initiated dialogue takes Alex almost as off guard as the previous conversation’s turn had.

“I, um, yeah. I guess so. You don’t speak it?”

Kara looks embarrassed.

“Well you see, uh, I wasn’t really planning on coming here, and english is my second language already so I’m pretty good at Latin based alphabets, I promise. It’s just that my enrollment and showing up here was all so sudden that it hadn’t really occurred to me that I would have to learn a whole new language until—” Kara is glad that Alex cuts her off there, because she was just about to tell her that it hadn’t occurred to her until she was listening in on Lena telling Alex about her without any real clue of what was being said that she’d have to relive her experiences of fumbling through English all over again, this time without any familiar faces.

She’s feeling small again, and Alex must notice that something is wrong because she says, in what Kara guesses is her softest voice, “Hey, don’t sweat it, Kara. Learning a new language is hard. We’ll take it slow.”

Kara is appreciative of the gentle smile Alex sends her way as a red blush creeps up her cheeks and overtakes her face. They continue their journey upward in content silence until they finally reach the fourth floor. Kara tries not to remind herself that she could have flown all their luggage up in seconds and instead tries to focus on the friendship she hopes she has gained with Alex.

Alex leads them down the hall before pushing a rustic looking key into an ornate doorknob and unlocking it. She is about to turn the knob when instead she turns to Kara and says, “Lesson number one: _Hjem_. It means home. This’ll be ours for the next nine months.” and with that she pushes the door open with an ear-splitting screech of its hinges.

Kara tries to shake the pain caused by the intrusive sound from her head and sighs when it settles into a dull throb at the base of her skull, before looking into the dorm. It’s a quaint room, symmetrical on both sides with a closet, a twin size bed, two dressers stacked on top of each other, and a desk. Alex drops all of her things in the threshold of the room and claims the bed on the left by collapsing upon it immediately, promising to unpack her stuff later and that really right now she just needs a nap. Kara lets out a little laugh at her roommate and begins to unpack her own things.

It’s not until later when Alex is picking up Kara's suitcase by mistake while reaching for her own and she sees the shriveled up, mangled piece of metal that had once been a handle before kara had angrily gripped it in her hand in the stairwell, that Alex starts to wonder exactly what her new roommate really meant about English not being her first language.


	2. Drittsekker og Store Søstre

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back by popular demand; also special thanks to the commenter who mentioned that i spelled kal's name wrong  
> ((that was embarrassing!))  
> and!! all of your comments are so nice and insightful!! thanks so much guys!!

“She has nightmares.” Alex says, picking at a fleck of dirt that has somehow managed to find refuge under her otherwise immaculately clean fingernails.

“That’s it?” Lena replies, looking up from the notepad she’s been jotting in for the past twenty minutes as the different prefects inform her of the things that are running smoothly and the new girls that seem to be settling in alright. Thankfully that list manages to greatly outweigh the things that aren’t running so smoothly and the new girls that need a little more help. Unfortunately though, it appears that Alex’s new roommate, Kara Zorel, falls into the latter category. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”

Alex shrugs. She hadn’t exactly wanted to be a prefect, but Lena had been a friend of hers for years and so had Lucy and Susan-Don’t-Ever-Call-Me-Susie, It’s-Vasquez, both of whom had their hearts set on being prefects since primary school and so she had allowed herself to be roped in. And now here she was because of it, responsible for a sixteen year old girl with the heart of a puppy and the sadness of another, subsequent puppy except this one had probably been abandoned at some point in its life. Or maybe its whole family had died in a car accident or something. Alex wasn’t really sure on the details quite yet, just that it was almost certainly something tragic. Or something like that. She didn’t know.

(With the way Kara tossed and turned at night, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.)

“What else were you hoping for, _Storesøster_ _?”_ she responds, a little bit of bite behind her words that Lena knows means Alex hasn’t been sleeping well either. She writes _‘pick up Alex some tea from town’_ into a tiny space of margin on her already mostly full piece of notebook paper. She wants to sigh and pass her fingers over the fine hair of her eyebrow, a telltale sign of her frustration. It’s a movement she hasn’t allowed in years and the old habit creeps up on her out of nowhere. Her fingers itch with the urge of it but then she sees her mother’s face scolding her for doing that exact thing when she was younger because it would muss up her finely plucked and made up eyebrows, and god forbid a growing _child_ ever look anything but perfectly put together. She remembers having to clean the cobblestone walkway in their backyard on her hands and knees like a dog as punishment. She remembers the way her knees and palms would be raw for days, the skin red and splitting and angry and swollen, and the way Lex had snapped at it with wooden spoons and towels and anything really, and so she puts her hands under her thighs and steeples her fingers against the seat of her chair instead and forces the urge back into the dark. Tries not to think of her family. She never thinks of them anymore, anyway.

(Except for when she _does._ Except for late at night when they creep up on her and slink out of the inky black corners of her dorm room and she can’t do anything to stop them. Except for when they come crawling back like cockroaches and sure, Lena’s never been a heavy drinker or someone who condones it, but on nights like those alcohol is the only way to make them scatter, but it’s alright, because she’ll take those nights any day over the ones where they appear in her sleep, drifting from one dream into another and weaving together lies about love and happiness and belonging. Those dreams, those memories, they’re harder. They remind her of a time when they used to hold her in their arms like she actually meant something to them, and that feeling is so much more difficult waking up from when she wakes up from it so alone. So maybe really, she knows a thing or two about nightmares too.)

“What do you do when she has these nightmares?” Lena finally asks, snapping herself out of it, because this is not about her.

(Nothing ever is.)

“Well, I didn’t really _do_ anything for the first two nights. I just kind of figured they were like an adjustment thing and they’d subside, but last night I, uh, I crawled in next to her and held her for a little while. That seemed to help.” Alex says, almost sheepish and embarrassed, which are not words Lena often associates with the brunette. Alex rubs at the back of her neck in a way that anyone who knows her could tell you means that she’s proud of something she’s done even if she’s trying not to show it.

Maggie Sawyer, a transfer student from four years ago who is sitting next to Alex, smiles up at her with thinly veiled adoration, moving to brush her hand against the one Alex has resting on the table, and Lena wants to roll her eyes. Maggie and Alex have been hopelessly in love since the day Maggie arrived here when they were both thirteen; and while everyone else seems to be aware of it, the two girls have yet to realize it for themselves. Personally, Lena thinks they’d be very cute together.

(As does the rest of their grade, as Lucy Lane, head prefect and the girl sharing the table one to the left with Vasquez, had informed her their first night back by asking if she wanted to place a bet on when the two would get together and telling her that the grade-wide pool had now reached a whopping five hundred krones. Lena had scolded her loudly and vehemently for any onlookers and then placed twenty krones on the two week slot over winter break.)

Once again, Lena has to drag her wandering mind back into the present, “Have you considered sharing a bed with her to begin with? I know it’s a bit of an unorthodox suggestion but it could work, and if we really want Kara to be successful here a good night’s sleep is critical.”

“I’ll run it by her.” Alex responds, in a way that means she absolutely will not run it by her and instead will just spring it on the poor, unsuspecting girl. Lena lets it go for now.

“Excellent. Keep me informed.” she rotates her attention to the table one to the left. “Vasquez, how are things on the fifth floor?” Lena asks, assessing floor by floor as per usual, and she crosses her fingers in hope that the final two floors will be wrapped up quickly and smoothly.

 _“_ _Storesøster_ _,_ I am going to fucking murder Siobhan Smythe.” Vasquez responds, and before lena can even reprimand her on her choice of language, the girl’s statement is being met with hearty cheers of agreement.

Lena levels the room with a single look, before directing her glare toward Vasquez in specific,  “Remind me again why you’re a prefect?”

Vasquez gives her a trademark grin, “Because prefect meetings get me out of Mr. Lorde’s computer science class and he’s a massive _drittsekk_?”

Lena can’t argue there.

 

xx

 

Kara likes school.

Really, she does. Earth, despite its flaws, is truly a beautiful and interesting place. She has always liked learning about this new planet and all its wonders; all the different kinds of flowers they have here (Like roses. They never had roses on Krypton, or anything that even vaguely resembled them. Flowers weren’t very common there as most of Krypton had been covered in sprawling cities. The colors here are a little different than they had been on her home planet too, and she had never seen a red so vivacious and so bright than when she had crash landed on Earth. Wildlife was one of the few things she had taken an immediate liking to on this new planet.) and it’s for this reason that when she saw that she had natural sciences on her class schedule, it had been one of the few beacons of hope that she had been able to latch onto in such a dark situation.

Perhaps that’s why it stings so much when her natural sciences teacher is so mean to her. And she doesn’t even know why. She didn’t even _do_ anything.

It had started when the teacher, Mr. Carr, was taking role. He had run down the list of names, come to hers and after ensuring that she was present, had said, word for word, “Zorel. That’s a stupid last name. I’d change it if you ever plan on amounting to anything worthwhile.”

That’s when the sting had started. Because sure, maybe here on earth ‘Zorel’ was kind of a funny name but on Krypton it had _meant_ something. It had been an honor to carry that name. The House of El had stood for something, had stood stronger together.

(But she was alone now.)

Then, later on in class when she had accidentally knocked her textbook off her desk and had been too stunned to do anything other than sit there, dazed, as the sound had rang in her ears like a gunshot, Mr. Carr had had a field day ridiculing her. It had gotten to the point where she could hear her classmates whispering amongst themselves about how harsh he was being and to “cut the poor girl some slack”.

(The whispers hadn’t helped her in coming back to her senses and neither had Mr. Carr’s yelling. It had all been so _loud_ and overwhelming and there wasn’t much she could do other than sit back and let it all bombard her, the telltale signs of a migraine already blossoming at the base of her skull and spreading forward. It didn’t help that there wasn’t a pain medication strong enough in this solar system to ease the ache.)

But slack she did not receive, and so her already shoddy morning had gone from bad to worse. Natural sciences was a bust, her creative writing teacher’s vocabulary was too advanced for her meager three years of English to follow one hundred percent of the time, and her art appreciation teacher had told her that they would be studying art theories and their founders and that if they wanted to _actually_ paint or draw something, they would have to take the advanced class next year. But hey, at least she had been good at physical education, right? Or so Mr. Henshaw had said.

Kara is finally on her last block of the day, some kind of social studies class, and has long since reached her limit. Her senses are roaming free in a way that feels like drifting in and out of consciousness, like an out of body experience, like being everywhere and nowhere at once, when she hears that voice again.

She isn’t sure exactly where it’s coming from, maybe the grand cathedral that’s kitty corner from the Great Hall, but at this point she doesn’t really care where it’s coming from so long as it doesn’t stop. She had been right about the migraine, and since her natural sciences class it has only progressed to the point where it feels like railroad spikes are being hammered into her head at even the smallest sounds.

(When she had asked Clark about this feeling once, he had told her that it was called sensory overload, and she could not have thought of a better term for it even if she had tried to come up with one herself. When she had asked him how to make it stop _hurting_ so much, he had said that it was just something she would have to learn how to deal with and control in time, because it had never been a problem for him. He had merely been too young when he got here. Come to think of it, that’s how Clark answered a lot of things.)

She feels none of that now. The way the girl’s voice, Lena Luthor, she reminds herself, rises and falls is like a dance, and just the sound of her speaking is already soothing the dull throb in Kara’s head.

And then she begins to sing.

Kara has always been appreciative of music. It isolates her senses to her immediate surroundings in a way that has always been hard for her without a conscious effort, and when she first came to earth it was the one way that she could focus only on what was around her without looking higher and higher until she was in space searching for a planet that no longer existed, her ears strained for proof that would say otherwise. But Krypton was gone and she was only ever able to pick up things like baseball games and movies showing in cinemas and children shrieking with joy in parks located in cities thousands of miles away.

Maybe that’s why when she hears Lena start to sing, it feels like finding that proof that she had been searching for all those years ago. She doesn’t even know the song, but the way that Lena’s voice trembles on the high notes and drops gently into the low notes, like searching for a mother’s embrace that hasn’t been felt in years, makes it feel familiar anyway. She strains just a little bit more and it’s almost like she’s there. The music wraps around her in a way that she knows the acoustics of this classroom would never allow, but she’s never been one for logistics anyway. She lets Lena’s voice build and echo off of itself in between her ears for as long as she can, easing the pain of her pounding head, and when Lena settles on one note in particular, it is like her headache melts away with the very ebb and flow of her voice. She holds her breath and for a single moment, everything is alright, and she is at peace.

But then the song is over, and Kara is snapped back into reality, the all familiar throb of her head making itself known once again. She releases her breath.

 

xx

 

“Alex?” Kara asks when she enters her dorm room, the hinges of her door once again, to her dismay, squealing loudly, and she sees her roommate dragging their furniture around the room, “What are you doing?”

“You have nightmares.” Alex says, as if that explains everything, grunting with the effort of shoving Kara’s bed up into the corner of the room with little kicks that lurch it across their floor a few feet at a time. Alex seems satisfied when it’s settled right below the one window of the room.

“What does that have to do with you, um, redecorating?” Kara tries to get her roommate to clarify, but Alex merely holds up a finger, dragging her own bed so that it’s edge is now pushed right up against Kara’s and their two twin mattresses look like a single queen sized one.

“You’re a very tactile person, aren’t you?” Alex turns to Kara once the beds are in place, hands on her hips.

“I, um, yes?” Kara answers, still confused.

“You have nightmares, you’re a tactile person, and what used to be two separate beds for two people is now one bed for two people.” Alex ticks off these things on her fingers as she speaks matter-of-factly, as if things should really be clear to her by now. Kara still looks lost.

Alex finally takes mercy on the girl and spells it out for her, “Kara, you sleep better when someone’s holding you. I’m gonna share a bed with you, so that you don’t, you know, _have nightmares._ ” and that clicks everything into place.

“If that’s alright with you, I mean.” Alex adds as an afterthought, hand moving to the back of her neck.

Kara rushes across the room, wrapping Alex in a tight hug that knocks all the air out of her, an embarrassed blush rising on Alex’s face at the unexpected gratitude.

“Thank you so much, Alex.” Kara whispers, voice thick with an emotion that makes Alex think she might be crying a little. Alex lets out a breath and hugs her back, smoothing her hands down Kara’s shoulders and trying to squash the protective feelings rising in her chest because it’s not like she’s this girl’s sister or anything.

“See what I mean?” Alex says once her feelings have been conveniently locked back into the box that she keeps them in and Kara has pulled back and is wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her school sweater while Alex tugs lightly on a wisp of hair that has escaped her ponytail, “Tactile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to drop me a line on tumblr! @c1oud9


	3. Clark Er En Fitte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angst from kara followed by fluffy danvers sisters followed by more angst, this time from alex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen!! i promise the angst is for a reason! it is essential to the story!!! i have a Plot^tm! i want kara to be happy just as much as you all do!!

Kara’s first week of school hadn’t exactly been the best.

Okay, that’s a bit of an understatement; Kara’s first week of school had been one of the worst of her life, paling in comparison only to the first week she had arrived on earth. Her powers had been so out of control that she hadn’t been able to do anything other than lie on the couch of Clark’s one bedroom apartment, feeling helpless. Feeling lost. Feeling useless. Feeling as if her reality had crumbled down around her at the same moment that her planet had. She hadn’t been able to speak a lick of English and seeing as Clark had been a baby when he left, he couldn’t speak any Kryptonese either. They had no way of communicating, and even then Kara knew that it was bound to blow up in their faces. They were two stars orbiting each other on the verge of collision, neither able to warn the other of their shared impending doom. The explosion had finally happened when Kara had gone and tried to prepare herself food one morning and, with a burst of unexpected strength, had unintentionally ripped the whole door of the fridge off like it were nothing.

Clark had _lost_ it.

He had screamed at her for hours in a language that she couldn’t even understand and her head had felt as if it were splitting open. He was so _loud_ when he wanted to be, and at the time Kara had had no grip on her powers. His voice was so overwhelming that it felt like it was coming at her from everywhere, from all angles, and she had shielded her tiny ears with her even tinier hands in a desperate attempt to stop the pain. His voice had ripped through her head in the same way that she imagines bullets would, were they were capable of harming her. She'd had tears streaming down her face during the entire shouting match, and she had begged him in Kryptonese to stop, which had somehow made him angrier. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She had told him that she was sorry and that she didn’t understand. That she didn’t even know why he was so _mad_. She told him that it had been an accident and that she would try harder next time. But his screaming didn't halt as her voice, meek even in her own ears, had stuttered out these things in Kryptonese words that no longer meant anything to him. That was when it really hit her, when it really sunk in: she was the lone survivor of Krypton. Sure, Clark had been born there, but it wasn’t his home. He considered himself a child of Earth now, and Krypton was nothing more to him than a piece of his past that he tried desperately to escape; a piece that came bubbling to the surface every time he looked at Kara. And from that day on, she carried the weight of Krypton, and all that it had been, on her small but strong shoulders, alone. She had felt so isolated.

(She _feels_ so isolated.)

She shakes herself out of the memory as she feels a cool, fall breeze on her cheeks. She thinks that it should be too early in the season for the wind to be so cold, but then she reminds herself of where she is: on top of the highest building in campus, which just happens to be an old bell tower that sprouts out of the back of the grand cathedral. She sighs. As much as she loves the view that it offers, (down the massive mountains that the school is built into the side of to foothills filled with forests that recede into the nearest village; Geiranger, if she recalls correctly.) she’d rather be flying.

(She _loved_ to fly. In the early days it had been one of the only things she looked forward to. The harsh whips of wind on her cheeks. The rush of adrenaline that had always accompanied being up so high. Tiny pinpricks of water that collected into fat droplets on the goosebumps of her arms as she bursted through clouds. It had all made her feel free in a way that nothing else had. In that first year, her body had felt like a cage that she’d been trapped in. She hadn’t been able to do even the smallest of things without a conscious, significant effort; except for flying. Flying had felt like second nature, like coming home, had felt like she thinks waking up back on Krypton would.)

But Clark had forbade her from flying when he caught her coming home in the wee hours of morning one day, saying that it ran too much of a risk of exposing them both; and she had been, in every sense of the word, permanently grounded. She doesn’t even know if she’s still capable of flying, she hasn’t done it in so long.

So she had walked, up all four hundred and thirty eight (she’d counted) steps, until she had reached the top of the old bell tower, and then she had climbed up thirteen rungs of ladder until she was on the roof, where she’s been sat for the last half hour. If she closes her eyes, lifts her arms, and ignores the solid, raspy feel of the roof beneath her, she can almost imagine that she’s flying. And oh, how she wants to fly.

Her first week had been terrible. Her first week had been _catastrophic_. People had whispered about her around every turn. And although not intended for her ears, she had heard every. Single. Comment. All the different voices had washed over and over and over each other until they all coalesced and it had been too much noise for her. How could just one building hold so _many_ sounds? So many voices? She can still feel the whispers between her ears, like heavy anvils tied to her fingernails, dragging her down, down, inch by inch deeper into an abyss until she is gasping for air. It feels like she imagines drowning would.

She wraps her arms tightly around her knees and tells herself that it’s because of the cold and not because she is so incredibly lonely, her eyes welling up with tears as they search the heavens for something familiar and something she’ll never see again.

Her gaze finally lands on one of her favorite constellations. It looks different from this planet than it did on Krypton, but maybe that’s just because they didn’t really have constellations on her home planet. On Krypton, nobody looked at groups of stars and saw pictures of monsters and gods, whispered stories about them that would last for centuries into eager ears. Her home planet, so driven by science and technological advancements, had looked at stars and saw them for what they were: stars. She wishes people on Krypton had had a bit more of the childish wonder that she finds in abundance here.

She thinks the name of the constellation is Libra, but she isn’t sure. She knows the history though, and knows that it’s got a couple different interpretations: the Egyptians saw it as Chonsu, a divine child symbolising birth and renewal. The Babylonians, however, had viewed it as sacred to the sun god Shamash, a patron of truth and justice. And yet still, to Arabic people, it was the claws of a scorpion. While Kara appreciates all three of these ideas, she likes the Ancient Greek version of things best. They believed it to be a scale, representing the imbalance of light and darkness during the days of fall. The scale was said to be forged by Hephaestus, and the story of Hephaestus is another favorite of hers; an unsuspecting boy, cast out of his home when he was just a child.

Kara can relate.

She likes stars in general, in a bittersweet sort of way. They remind her of home, but memories of Krypton are always accompanied by watery smiles and lances of pain slicing through her heart. She thinks some part of her must like having her heart broken though (another part of her thinks that she deserves it), because right now, she lets the memories wash over her unimpeded.

Her aunt had been good at astronomy and had taught her a lot about stars from the time she had been very young. She remembers one time in particular when Kara had asked about the bright lights in the sky for the very first time, just barely six. Her aunt had smiled in a way that Kara would learn years later meant nothing but trouble of the very best kind, and she had managed to proceed and, over the course of a few minutes, convince Kara that every single star was a lightning bug that had grown and grown and grown until it was too big for its planet and so it had become a star instead. It was a belief that she would carry with her for almost two more years, until her father finally caved and told her the truth. She smiles even now, her head filled with more memories of her aunt Astra’s shenanigans. Gosh she is just so—

Was.

She swallows. Her aunt _was_ _._

The word makes her lower lip tremble. She has never felt so alone.

 

xx

 

 _“Kald.”_ mumbles Kara’s sleep hazy roommate after she has finally coaxed herself back down off the rooftop and reentered their shared dorm room later that night, peeling back the maroon, queen sized comforter that Alex had managed to procure yesterday from, well, _somewhere._ She slides in next to her, tentatively curling her cold form into the brunette’s.

“What’s that mean?” Kara asks as she timidly snuggles up closer to the other girl.

“Cold.” Alex responds around a yawn.

“What is?” Kara asks, though she has a feeling that she already knows.

“Your feet.” and Kara giggles at the offended gasp she receives from Alex when she teasingly presses her frigid toes against the bare skin of the other girl’s calf.

“Jerk.” Alex mumbles, looping one arm over Kara’s torso and pulling her closer into the circle of her arms in that comforting way that Alex has learned over the past two nights that Kara needs for a good night’s sleep.

“Hey, Alex?” Kara asks, letting out a contented sigh at the secure feeling of being cradled in someone’s embrace.

“I’m asleep.” Alex tells her in a level voice without even a touch of haziness, meaning that she is now fully awake. Kara continues, because she knows that the other girl is only teasing.

“Where did this comforter come from?” She tugs lightly on the edge of the blanket keeping them both warm.

“My friend Maggie helped me steal it from the Head RA on floor one.”

“Alex!” Kara gasps, clearly disagreeing with her roommates tactics of acquiring new things. Alex lets out a quiet laugh and smiles, shakes her head though she knows Kara can’t see, and gives the other girl a teasing little squeeze, before settling against her back once more. She shifts her head on the pillow a little, and Kara listens to her breathing level out again before she starts to drift off herself.

She is just sleepy enough that when Alex says, _‘hey, Kara?’_ quieter than she’s ever heard the other girl speak, she thinks that she has imagined it for a moment.

“Hmm?” Kara hums back groggily.

“Do you want to talk about your nightmares?” the measured gentleness of Alex’s voice has Kara wide awake once more, and she stiffens.

“I thought you were asleep?” she answers in a weak attempt at humor. The avoidance tactic isn’t lost on Alex.

“Okay.” Alex says after a few beats of silence, in a way that makes Kara think that she understands. In a way that makes Kara think that Alex might have nightmares of her own.

(and boy, does she. Alex used to relive that same horrifying moment when the axis of her whole world was thrown out of tilt over and over again every single night. She knew it backwards and forwards, knew every sound that every board had made that night as she had padded unknowingly down the hall to her parent’s bedroom. She knew how the memory felt when played out in elongated seconds that made everything seem like it was happening in slow motion, like she was moving underwater. She'd had every version of that same dream imaginable. She had run down that hallway until her lungs burned, her parents’ door always in sight and always just out of reach. She had stumbled down that hallway as if moving through molasses, with a tongue heavy as a bowling ball and a mouth full of sand, unable to cry out, unable to move any further than a few inches per step and by the time she had reached the door it was too late. Always too late. She had sunk through the bottom of the floor as if it were quicksand and landed directly in front of her parents’ bedroom door skewed in the exact same way that she had left it when she'd run out of the room that night: open just enough for anyone looking to peer into the room and see the thing that had fueled her nightmares every night for years. That dream always made her long for the ones where she never even made it to the room to begin with. The ones where she woke with a gasp and sent her mom a panicky text full of typos because her fingers were trembling too hard to move how she wanted them to and her eyes were too full of tears to see straight. She prefers those dreams over the ones where she makes it to her parents’ bedroom and creaks the door open inch by inch and peers inside. She prefers those dreams over the ones where she has to relive every agonizing detail of what lay inside that room in painstaking color. She prefers those dreams over the ones where she remembers, and wakes unable to forget.)

But Alex hasn’t had The Nightmare in one year, nine months, and thirteen days—not that she’s counting—and she too would rather not dreg up any of the messy details if she didn’t have to. So yes, she understands Kara not wanting to talk, not wanting to have to relive the same things she does every quaking hour of the night again in broad daylight. So she let’s it drop.

For now.

“I’m here if you ever want to talk about it. I know a thing or two about nightmares.”

Oh, Alex. But really, in this place, who doesn’t?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just as last time, you can yell at me on tumblr @c1oud9


	4. Lucy Lane Til Unnsetning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, readers! so up until now the update schedule for this fic has been non-existent, but i'm trying to work on that! just know that your comments keep me inspired to write!

This, Kara thinks, as her shoulders settle with ease, slump in a way that is free of tension and that she thinks she hasn’t felt in weeks, she likes.

When Clark had first told her that she was being sent to an all girls Catholic boarding school, she had been worried about a lot of things (Being an outcast. _Again_. Having to learn new names and new faces who definitely wouldn't even go through the trouble of trying to learn hers. Everybody here is so busy trying to be extraordinary that Kara isn’t even a blip on their radar, still struggling to even achieve ordinary. She is allowed but never invited. Tolerated but never wanted. Kara doesn’t know how to describe it. She just knows that there is a difference between having something on your shopping list and only buying it because it is half off. She knows which category she belongs in. She wonders what it might be like to be on the list from the start.) So yes, she had been worried about a lot of things, and mandatory mass services, while definitely not the highest up on her list, had certainly been one of them.

But this church service is _heaven_. She had imagined it would feel something like pulling teeth, but it is nothing like that. And as she leans her tension-free shoulders back into her spot shoved between Alex and the wooden railing signaling the end of the pew, she can’t bring herself to feel anything other than at peace. The comforting atmosphere of the service had been a complete surprise; the priest’s voice is low and gravelly and really, Kara thinks, should grate on the very last of her nerves, but for some reason it just _doesn’t_. It is rounded and full and reverberates off of the high arching ceiling and pillared columns until it is something tangible all in itself. She wraps it around herself like a sweater, like a shawl, like a baby taking comfort in being swaddled. It echoes unto itself until it is an ocean that Kara is content to simply float in, eyes cast up to the way the morning light scatters through the stained glass windows and warms her skin. The light hits her hair and burns it an impossible golden color and Kara hums, low and content, watching century old dust swirl and dance and glimmer as it greedily catches the sunlight falling through the windows like curtains and draping pews packed with girls in pleated skirts and collared button-ups and blazers and knee socks. In this chapel, Kara is everything and nothing all at once and the priest’s voice could be infinite and it would never be enough. She could listen to him speak for hours, she is just so _happy_. And then there’s also the fact that everyone is silent, a rare occasion in and of itself. There is no whispering, no nervous tapping or obnoxious giggles. not even the stifled cough that comes every so often from the girl two rows behind her can bother Kara. Right now she feels untouchable and invincible in a way that she’s always been told she is but never really felt until now. She is just so satisfied, something she doesn’t think she’s been in a long time.

But if she thinks she feels heavy and content and downright _intoxicated_ to begin with, she can’t even begin to describe what she feels when the choir comes out to lead them in hymns and _Lena Luthor_ doesn’t just sing, but sings lead. On almost all very song.

Kara lets her sense soar, eases her sensitivity up so high that she can feel the disturbances in the air as sound waves pass through it and caress her skin with all the pressure of butterfly wings. Kara feels high, drunk off of Lena’s heavenly voice that is like honey dripping and syrup spilling and Kara wants to canister it. She wants to save it for days when she wishes she had exploded right along with her planet and drink it in on nights that her throat is so choked with emotion that it feels like it has closed off completely. Lena’s voice makes her happy, in a way that few other things do. Kara could listen to her talk for days, but god when she _sings_. Kara doesn’t have the words to describe it. It is like angels heralding, like seeing the stars for the first time, like hitting a homerun to win the game in the bottom of the ninth inning.

So yes, Kara is definitely looking forward to Sunday mass from now on, and is more than a little disappointed when the service draws to a close after the priest has uttered the final amen and begins to dismiss the girls.

Alex stands and stretches, her joints popping as she rolls out the crinks in her long limbs.

"Alexandra!” comes the sharp call of one of her professors as the teacher makes a beckoning motion with her hand.

“Ugh, I have to go talk to her. I’ll catch you back at the dorm later.” She tells Kara, and then is gone.

Ordinarily, Kara might be nervous about heading back to their room alone, anxious she’d get lost, but today she makes the whole trip in a dazed out bliss, entering the hall to her dormitory almost as if in a dream when—

“Watch where you’re fucking going!” Comes an angry snarl, and Kara is on the floor before she even knows what’s happening.

Her glasses fly off her face and go skittering towards the girl who’s just knocked her over, and for a moment Kara doesn’t even know who she’s collided with because, without her glasses restricting her sight, she has no choice but to look through the girl and up through the other two floors of the building and through the bat-infested ceiling and up into the stratosphere until she is through that as well. Her vision takes her flying through the stars, galaxies and nebulas and a cosmic choreography that staggers the mind zipping past her without a second thought as she zooms away from them, unable to stop herself now that she’s started. Without realizing it, her gaze has found the empty space where her heart—her planet—used to be, and she _aches_.

It is always like this. She just can’t seem to stop herself. It’s like when you stumble upon something that you know you weren’t supposed to see and you know that it will hurt and you know that you should look away, you _know_ , but for some reason you just can’t. It’s a game that Kara plays often, one with no clear rules or opponents and yet one that she still somehow always seems to end up losing. It is a game of truth or dare where the dares always end in truths and the truths always end in pain. It is a game of chicken, of egging herself on, of looking and searching even though every damn time she knows exactly what she is going to see; and yet, every time, she still looks. Some part of her thinks that she must like having her heart broken.

(Another part of her tells her that she deserves it.)

With an effort more significant than Kara would care to admit and one that leaves the early signs of a pounding headache behind, she pulls her gaze down from the stars and comes hurtling back into the moment at a million miles per second. It feels shockingly close to free-falling, and her heart is racing by the time she can focus back on the girl in front of her who is speaking once more, has been maybe for the past minute or so.

“Hey, _taper_ , did you not hear me?” Sneers the intimidatingly attractive girl who knocked Kara down as she now towers over her, Kara yet to move from the ground. Kara scrambles forward and the other girl kicks her glasses just out of Kara’s grasp as she reaches for them. She seems almost gleeful as she watches Kara’s eyes well up with tears and the feeling of being helpless.

“You know what?” The dark haired girl starts, taking another menacing step towards Kara as Kada scoots even further back, swiping at the traitorous tears filling her eyes and threatening to spill down her cheeks. She just doesn’t understand why this girl is being so _mean_. She had just been walking! And she’s pretty sure that the other girl bumped into her anyway!

She tries to swallow the emotions threatening to claw their way up her throat, because she can’t do this right now. She will not cry in the middle of a hallway in front of a girl that probably isn't even all that bad, but is so sick of feeling small and unwanted and so, so similar to how Kara feels that she relies on making other people cry to keep her own tears at bay. She will not cry in front of someone whose happiness depends on and thrives off of causing others pain. She will not let loose all of the emotions that she wallows in at night. She just wants to fit in, just wants to people to like her.

(She doesn’t want to be _that_ girl. She has been that girl all her life; always an outsider, always pressing her face in on the glass and watching other people have fun, watching other people connect while she could barely even communicate with them. She doesn’t want that here, and part of her is grateful that Clark sent her somewhere where she can have a fresh start. Somewhere where nobody knows about _the Incident_ and nobody knows that she’s so much different than they are. She’s tired of feeling like an alien.)

Her hands are pressed tightly together in front of her defensively and she is _exhausted_. That kind of tired that you can feel in your bones, the kind that no amount of sleep can cure. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing anymore. She had promised to her mother that she would protect Clark, but she can’t even protect herself. She is falling apart, and nobody else even knows a single thing about it. She is a supernova on the verge of bursting, a galaxy on the edge of collapse, and she is terrified because when she finally does implode it will really be an explosion and she isn’t sure how many other people she will take with her, how many other innocents will be caught in the crossfire. It had happened once, it could happen again. Kara is worried for everyone around her, because even she doesn’t know what she’s capable of, and in her own mind she has never been anything more than collateral damage.

A tear rolls down her cheek despite her efforts to keep it in and she clenches her fists tightly into the cotton of her school cardigan as if somehow that will defend her from the onslaught she knows this girl is about to launch. She takes a deep breath.

(Because sure, sticks and stones will never be capable of breaking her bones, but words can tear her to _shreds_.)

“What?” Says a voice that is not Kara’s own, and when she looks up she sees that another girl has interfered and stepped between Kara and her assailant.

“Ugh, step off, Lucy. This is between me and four eyes.” The girl who had knocked Kara over says a little disgustedly, though she does seem to shrink a little and takes a step back. Kara wonders why for a second, as the new girl, Lucy apparently, is at least two or three inches shorter than the other dark haired girl, but then even Kara feels herself shrinking back a little at the confident authority that seems to roll off of this Lucy in waves.

“Four eyes and me, Siobhan. You should learn some manners.” Lucy retorts simply, arms crossing over her chest in a way that says she is unimpressed.

“You’d know all about manners, wouldn’t you, Baby Lane? What with the way you let your sister walk all over you and take what was yours?” Siobhan steps forward again, and now they are toe to toe.

Lucy’s eyes narrow, “And what does my sister have to do with you tormenting this poor girl?” The way she says it is almost nonchalant, her head tilting in a way that appears lackadaisical but Kara and all the other girls who have gathered and not-so-subtlety been staring at the exchange can tell it is anything but. The look isn't even directed at them and yet the other students are all fidgeting under the weight and implication of it, dropping their eyes to their suddenly interesting shoes. The tilt of Lucy’s head is a message, and a clear one at that. It is the cocking of a gun, a warning sign, it is and _I can and will knock you flat on your ass._

Siobhan either doesn’t realize this or just doesn’t care, because all she does is continue to eye Lucy, as if sizing her up, debating on whether or not she thinks she will make good on the threat. Whether or not she cares enough to find out.

Kara takes this opportunity to scramble for her glasses and shove them hastily back onto her face, knowing she should do something about the electricity crackling between the two girls but unsure of what.

However, after a long, tense silence swollen and impregnated with kinetic energy, thankfully, Siobhan withdraws.

“Whatever.” She mutters as she turns, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she goes.

"Show’s over.” Lucy barks like an army general after Siobhan has rounded the corner, and as if her fellow peers were soldiers, they all do as she says without hesitation, scattering in opposite directions.

All the tension drains visibly from Lucy’s back as she sighs and her posture relaxes once everyone is gone. She turns wearing one of the softest smiles Kara has ever seen in her life.

“You alright?” Lucy asks, extending a hand to help Kara up.

And suddenly Kara is crying.

Lucy’s eyes go big as saucers at the sudden and emotional response.

“Woah! Um, are you hurt?” She rushes out, quick to get down on her knees so that her eyes are level with Kara’s.

“N-no, I don't think so.” Kara responds, her throat hitching as she swipes at her eyes furiously.

“I just—” She tries to explain, but can’t go any further as the words get stuck in her throat and just won’t come out, this only making her tears come faster.

“Hey, it’s alright.” Lucy murmurs, pulling Kara into the circle of her arms a little tentatively, chuckling when after a moment's hesitation Kara burrows her face into the girl’s shoulder completely, pressing herself as close as she possibly can.

“I’m sorry.” Kara tries once again, “I’m so, it’s just, I—”

“It’s perfectly okay.” Lucy cuts her off when it becomes clear that this sentence is also comprised of nothing but dead ends and frustration.

“You don’t owe me an explanation.” She adds, smoothing a hand over Kara’s hair and glaring over her shoulder at a student who had stopped to stare at them embracing on the second level hallway floor (She doesn’t care how strange it looks; she’s the damn prefect and if this girl wants to cry in the middle of the floor, then Lucy’s going to let her. But she’s certainly not going let her do it alone).

Once the student has passed, Lucy focuses her attention back on the crying girl in her arms and says, “Sometimes we all just need a good cry.”

Kara nods a little at this and Lucy gives her a squeeze in her arms that Kara lets out a choked off little giggle at.

“Someone’s ticklish,” she remarks absentmindedly, and grins when she feels Kara’s tiny smile from where the blonde’s face is still pressed into the crook of her neck.

She holds her for a moment more, before pulling back.

“You alright there, Sunshine?” Lucy asks, brushing a strand of hair away from Kara’s face as the other girl sniffles a little.

“Yes, thank you.” Kara tells her sincerely, wiping a sweater clad thumb under her eyes.

Lucy smiles and stands, then offers Kara a hand and pulls her up too.

“Anytime.” Lucy shrugs, before turning and walking down the hall toward where Kara guesses her dorm room is.

The girl spins back after a few seconds and adds, “I’m Lucy Lane by the way, the prefect on this floor. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.” Kara responds, smiling gently before turning and starting the trek up to her own dorm.

Kara smiles to herself as she enters the stairwell and wonders if the content she feels now is what having friends feels like.

(If it is, then having friends feels like perpetual sunshine.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> game night is coming up (:  
> as always, you can find me on the tumblr @c1oud9


	5. Akadmiske Radgivere Suger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bow chicka wowow

“No, Kara, for the last time you don’t have to conjugate those verbs. In Norwegian you don’t conjugate verbs in present tense. Also that’s the wrong article.” Alex scratches out more work on Kara’s paper, glancing over the girl’s shoulder onto the homework that she’s been pouring over for the past half hour. It had taken some convincing, but Kara had somehow managed to talk her way into the Intro to Norwegian class designated _“for year fives only, Miss Zorel.”_ Now she almost wishes she hadn’t. It’s humiliating to say the least; to be surrounded by ten year olds that seem to have a better grasp on the subject. If nothing else, it’s at least a testament to how much she actually does need to start with the very basics, and not just jump into Advanced Elements of Norwegian II like her counselor had wanted.

(It’s almost like the school official in charge of making her class schedule had wanted to see her fail or something.)

Kara groans, dropping her pencil and forehead onto the desk in front of her. She covers her head with her hands and tracks the writing utensil’s slow rolling movements off the desk and onto the floor with her hearing alone. Alex watches for a moment, completely unaware of what’s going on in her roommate’s head as Kara is enraptured by the sounds of the pencil finally cascading off the desk and slicing through the space around them. She can just feel each individual vibration and disturbance of the air like the wings of a butterfly brushing against her skin. **_Butterfly kisses,_** she marvels, beginning to understand the term for the first time.

To Alex it just looks like she’s zoning out. “Okay, yeah, no. You’re done for tonight.” the older girl concludes, crossing her arms and waiting.

“Huh?” Kara responds, elegant as ever as she lifts her eyes and blows a few stray strands of honey golden hair from her gaze.

“You are. Done. Put away your homework.” Alex tells her, arms still crossed expectantly.

“Why? What are we doing?” Kara questions, though she is already complying with Alex’s orders.

“D.E.O.” is Alex’s simple explanation.

“D.E.O.?”

“Yes, D.E.O.. Now grab your damn sweater and follow me.”

At that Kara quickly nabs her school cardigan off the back of her desk chair and slides both arms through the scratchy wool in one fluid motion, half-jogging to catch up to Alex who is already three steps out the door.

“Where are we going?” Kara asks, trying to match Alex’s big strides, long legs carrying her toward the stairwell at the end of the hall.

“You’ll see.” Alex tells her, swinging the heavy metal door open and taking the steps that lead to the second floor two at a time, once again leaving Kara trailing. When they finally reach the next floor down, Alex need only take about three steps into the hallway before coming to a stop and pounding on the very first door they come across.

“Yes?” comes the reply from within, the familiar face of Lucy Lane poking out from behind the door shortly after.

“D.E.O. in ten minutes.” is all Alex tells her, but it’s enough to make the other girl’s face light up.

“Should I bring anything?”

“No need.” Alex says, already moving further down the hall.

“Alright I’ll see you soon. And hi, sunshine.” Lucy smiles, upon noticing Kara for the first time through this whole strange conversation.

“Hi, Lucy, nice seeing you!” Kara calls brightly over her shoulder, chasing after her roommate.

Once again they make their way to the stairwell on the opposite end of the hallway, this time trekking all the way down to the first floor, and once again, Alex comes to a halt in front of the very first door they encounter. However this time, she knocks politely, almost even gingerly on the aged but sturdy wood. After a few moments, a short, pretty brunette swings the door wide wearing nothing but a sports bra and running shorts.

“Oh hey, Alex, I wasn’t expecting you.” the girl says, in a way that implies she definitely had been, breath coming just a bit short as if she had very quickly thrown on the revealing outfit after peering through the peephole, “Did you want to come in?”

“I, uh, hey Maggie,” Alex coughs, cheeks flaring as she awkwardly clears her throat and tilts her head a bit to the side in the direction of Kara. Upon noticing their audience, Alex’s interesting friends pulls the door a little closer to herself, “I just wanted to let you know we’re having a D.E.O. meeting in ten.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you there.” Maggie replies, albeit a little sheepishly, appearing almost unnoticeably disappointed.

“Cool.” Alex responds, hands fiddling idly as they both just stare at each other. After a few moments Alex shakes herself out of it and turns away. Maggie stares after her.

“So what was _that_ about?” Kara asks after hearing the soft click of the door closing behind them, eyebrow raised.

“No idea what you’re talking about, kid.” Alex puts simply, as they enter the stairwell once more, climbing to the third floor. Unsurprisingly she stops them and knocks on the first door they come across, this one swinging open after merely a split second and--

_Oh._

Kara’s heart must have gotten tired of living in her chest and grown fingers, then used those fingers to make its way up her esophagus and take up new residence in her throat, because now she can hardly swallow around the massive lump that’s appeared.

(And, I mean, it’s not like she even could swallow anything, what with how dry her mouth has become.)

Or maybe she’s feeling this way because all of a sudden her stomach doesn’t feel as calm as it had the minute before, tumbling and toiling, roiling like a fisherman’s trawler trying to chart its way through a storm. It must have been those suspicious looking yams she had for dinner. Surely there’s no other explanation. Or maybe it’s even got something to do with how her powers have been flaring up so much lately, with her over-sensitivity to noise and her vision that she can’t seem to reel in.

(But, of course, it’s got nothing to do with the fact that _Lena freaking Luthor_ is now standing right in front of her. Nope. Definitely nothing to do with that. Not at all related to the fact that she’s clad in nothing but a pair of skimpy pajama bottoms that do nothing to hide the miles of smooth skin covering her long legs that Kara’s eyes can’t seem to get away from. What was that thing her statistics teacher always said? That’s right, no correlation whatsoever. Nothing to do with the tight camisole wrapped around her torso that reveals the soft slope of her milky shoulders meeting the gentle curve of her neck slanting down to stark collar bones that jut out just above her supple--

“What can I do for you, Alex?” Lena asks, shoulders sidling back and transforming her from Lena into head girl in the span of just a single second.

“D.E.O. in ten.” Alex replies briskly, same as she had for all the others, unfazed while merely inches to her left Kara melts into a puddle of confusing feelings and hormones.

“Unfortunately, I can’t tonight. I have to finish reviewing for my fluid mechanics exam in the morning.” Lena tells Alex, still unaware of Kara in the midst of her gay awakening right outside her very door.

Alex _tsks_.

“Does the work of the head girl never stop?”

Lena rolls her eyes, and that’s when they finally bump into Kara’s. Their gazes lock and Kara feels her world _tilt._ Blue meets green and for a single second it feels as if the axis that her new planet whirls on has been thrown out of balance. Only everything rights itself again seconds later, and yet nothing is (or will ever be) the way it was again. It’s a strange feeling. A fleeting feeling. Something that’s always been there but nothing she’s ever felt before. The sky meets the earth, the forest gives way to the ocean, the waves push up onto the beach and creep toward the grass. Everything circling, the universe just a little more infinite than it had been before. _Endless, endless, endless._ Destroying and creating and something. Something. All within a single glance, and Kara can’t take another second of it. She stumbles sideways under the force of Lena’s eyes and she’s lost, winding her way through eyes so green they don’t belong to this world, running both toward and away from something but she can’t remember what. Can’t remember who. And she doesn’t know how she’ll find her way out of it this time, she really doesn’t, doesn’t even know if she was ever really lost in the first place.

“Hello, Kara.”

 _Kara_. Kara Kara Kara. Ka-ra. She hasn’t heard her name that way in years. Hasn’t felt the way lips wrap around it just right, the way a tongue curls around it just right since she was back on Krypton. It’s like a lightning bolt shot straight through her body. Finally somebody is saying it _right._ It’s in her skin, it’s in her veins, it’s in _her._ It’s in the _Ka-ra, Ka-ra, Ka-ra_ of her heart. **_Who is this girl?_** she thinks.

She can hardly breathe, can hardly speak, can practically taste Krypton on her tongue when she finally echoes,

“Hello, Lena.”

Hello indeed.

Later, much later, after review sessions for exams and pre-class readings and revisions for papers that aren’t even hers, Lena lies in bed, still unable to able to forget those eyes. She thinks they're bluest blue she’s ever seen, she thinks, _**w**_ _ **ho is this girl?**_


	6. Øyne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shenanigans and the gang gets to be happy, for once

“Got any threes?” Maggie asks, glancing up from the five cards held in her hands.

“Um, fish.” Kara answers, unsure.

“No, Kara, it’s ‘go fish’. And you only say that if you don’t have the card she’s asking you for. You’ve got a three, I can see it.” Alex tells the confused girl, leaning over to peer at the cards she’s clutching awkwardly with both hands.

“Hey! No looking at other people’s cards! That’s cheating, Alex!” Kara chastises, yanking her cards away from Alex’s line of sight and pressing them close to her chest.

Alex rolls her eyes, “Well good, I’m glad we’ve got that rule down.”

“I still can’t believe you’ve never played Go Fish before.” Lucy chimes in from her position in the circle, moving and reorganizing her own cards.

“Maybe she wouldn’t be having such a hard time if you guys explained it to her in a way that actually, like, made sense.” Vasquez suggests, legs stretched out in front of her while fanning and re-fanning her cards.

“Maybe you wouldn’t be having such a hard time winning if you didn’t actually, like, suck at card games.” Alex quips back, not even glancing up from her cards to catch the middle finger Vasquez promptly presents her but knowing the other girl well enough to return it.

Lucy laughs at her friends antics, “You know, we could just try playing something else. Is there anything that you’d like to play, Kara?”

 **_Sure,_ ** Kara thinks, **_we could play 17 Thribo,_ ** a game she used to play all the time on Krypton that her aunt had taught her. Only it might be a little hard without the tiles. And without any of these girls actually knowing how to, you know, read those tiles.

(Which is kind of how she feels herself at the moment, examining the strange, thin colored rectangles in her hands.)

But despite not knowing anything about Gone Fishing or whatever the game was called, she was actually having a lot of fun. Turns out that D.E.O. was just code (or something) for this forgotten storage room on the East side of campus that had been turned into a secret clubhouse by prefects decades ago. Apparently its location was one of the best kept secrets on school grounds, with only the prefects and head girl in the know, passing the knowledge onto the next gaggle of girls to take their positions after they graduate; so it was a pretty big deal (or so she’d been told) that she was being allowed to partake in tonight’s festivities. The whole thing sort of just felt like something she used to do with her family when she was little. _Adiv zil,_ or loosely translated, game night. ****

It’s a quaint little room, with an old and weathered sofa sitting against one wall, two depressing bean bags in one corner, and a peeling blue poker table encircled by lawn chairs in the other. The carpet has probably seen better days as it’s unraveling in multiple spots, and the paint could use touching up, but the truly impressive feature is what’s covering the wall opposite the couch. The far wall is lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves whose backs aren’t even visible anymore because they have been stuffed so full of board games. It’s an odd little collection, and Kara won’t lie, she doesn’t recognize most of the titles (okay, all of the titles. Kal-- _Clark_ hadn’t really been the board game playing type. Or at least, he hadn’t been with her), but according to Alex they had at least some version of just about every classic board game imaginable. Including, Vasquez had informed her quite proudly, the 1935 addition of Fortune--though it was missing a few pieces. The instruction manual being one of those missing pieces. Which rendered the game basically unplayable unless eve was present, a prefect in the Marsdin dorms who had played the game with her grandfather growing up. Or so Vasquez had said. And while Kara can make little to no sense of the collection of assorted titles and and colorful game boxes, she can tell that the girls take much pride in it. It’s their House of El, their legacy to uphold. That much was clear from the excitement in their eyes while speaking over their tradition of placing their own board game amongst the shelves of games once they graduated, though what specific title they’d be adding was still on the table.

However where they would fit that new addition into the already overflowing cabinet space, was beyond Kara.

“Um, that game Cluedo looks fun.” Kara settles on, after scanning the rows for a few moments.

“Classic, I like it. Cluedo it is then, sunshine.” Lucy smiles, throwing her playing cards down in front of her and rising from where they are all sat cross-legged in a circle on the floor.

“Now, hold on a minute! What about my three! I was winning!” Maggie protests, crossing her arms and pouting while Alex and Vasquez laugh.

“Hey, in the D.E.O. we’re all winners, champ.” Vasquez tells her sarcastically, placing a fake sincere hand on her arm that Maggie immediately swats off.

“Wow, Lane, I didn’t know we’d be playing Jenga too.” Alex snorts, watching Lucy try to shimmy the box marked CLUEDO in big bold letters out from the middle of a stack of games without toppling the rest of the pile.

“Suck it, Danvers.” Lucy eventually responds, triumphantly holding the game in both hands after sliding it out from under a big blue box adorned in boats whose faded title is just barely still legible as BATTLESHIP. Alex mock claps, pretending to be impressed.

“Hey, where’s M’gann and _storesøster_ at? I thought we were having an official J’onnz Dorms D.E.O. meeting.” Vasquez questions, sipping on one of many cans of orange fizzy sodas stashed in a small mini fridge under the poker table.

“Luthor’s doing homework, of course, and didn’t you hear about M’gann?” Maggie answers, surprised, “She got picked up by the states for their olympic boxing team. Turns out you really aren’t the toughest bitch on campus, Vasquez.”

“I still think I could take her,” comes the muttered response.

Alex snorts, “She’d kick your ass, and so could I.”

Vasquez eyes Alex, as if sizing her up.

“So who’s gonna be the prefect for the sixth floor then?” Lucy clears her throat, plopping down in between them and opening up the game before they take the opportunity to sort out that conundrum right now.

“Some new girl? Sam or something like that.” Maggie answers, clearly disinterested.

Kara however, is very interested in watching the girls converse. The level of comfort and ease with which they interact with each other is astonishing. It’s not something she’d ever seen or felt at her last school. There’s no hidden agenda, no trying to gain something or highlight some sort of weird power imbalance. They’re not speaking to show an upper hand, they’re speaking to enjoy each other’s company. It’s so wholesome, the way they trust each implicitly; the way they lobby insults without even a hint of teeth. All bark, no bite. The love they feel for each other in this room is almost tangible, even if some would be more hard pressed to admit it than others. It’s a beautiful moment, and Kara feels lucky to be a part of it. She smiles, feels safe here.

“Hey, earth to Kara. What are you thinking about over there, alien?” Vasquez jokes, tossing an M&M in her direction from a bag that she’s just brought out of her pocket.

“Alien?” Kara squeaks, eyes big as UFOs, “I--what?”

Vasquez chuckles, “Yeah, you know. Alien. Cause your head’s all the way up in space over there.”

“Ignore her,” Alex says, “she’s going through this weird phase about aliens right now.”

“Oh,” Kara laughs, all her tension melting away in a single breath, “I’m just thinking that I’m very glad to have met you all, and that I’m really happy to be included in this.”

Maggie scoffs, “Don’t be thankful yet, kiddo, you haven’t seen how badly Alex cheats to get ahead when we play Cluedo.”

Her soft, secret smile that follows, however, echoes Kara’s sentiment.

“I do not!” Alex defends.

“Oh, so a cheater _and_ a liar now too, huh, Danvers?”

Alex huffs and Maggie laughs, sharing a pointed look with Lucy as they begin setting up pawn like pieces on the playing board and dishing out cards after placing three in a small envelope directly in the center in a small room that Cluedo has dubbed ‘cellar’.

“Okay, so, Kara, you’re playing Miss Scarlett which means you get to go first. Just roll the dice and move that many spaces. The object of the game is to move into the rooms and guess who committed the murder in what room using what object. And you’ll know if you’re right by checking the three cards in the envelope.” Lucy explains, handing Kara a six sided die.

Kara glances down and without meaning to, stares right through the thin paper encasing the winning details only to find that Mrs. White, in fact, committed the murder in the billiard room using the revolver. Nevertheless she rolls the dice and moves her allotted four spaces.

Vasquez takes the next turn, rolling a six and already moving into the observatory, announcing her suspicion, “Danvers killed Sawyer in the library the other day when she bent over to pick up her bag, making the murder weapon that ass.”

She looks pointedly at Alex. Kara isn’t sure whose cheeks turn a brighter pink.  

“Be serious.” Alex mutters under her breath, hand going to the back of her neck while Maggie looks elsewhere and Lucy laughs.

Everyone takes their turn, and the dice slowly makes it around their little circle until it finds its way back around to Kara where she finally rolls high enough to enter a room.

“Mrs. White committed the murder in the billiard room using the Revolver. Go fish. I win.”

Lucy laughs, “Okay, no, Kara, you don’t win, we have to go around and look at our cards to disprove that and,” she glances through her cards, “wait, do you guys have any of those cards?” she looks around their small circle only to be met with multiple heads shaking.

“No way.” Lucy marvels, upon opening the envelope and sliding those exact three cards out. “Did you see them? That’s incredible, Kara; there are literally three hundred and twenty four different scenarios and you just guessed it in one go on your first time playing Cluedo?” Lucy seems impressed. (If only she knew.) “Looks like the D.E.O. finally found me some competition.”

Kara bites back a giggle.

(What can she say? She’s always had a competitive streak.)

“Whatever, that was the lamest game of Cluedo ever.” Vasquez mutters, throwing her cards down and crossing her arms.

“Aww, don’t be a sore loser, loser.” Alex says in mock sympathy, reaching over to flick her on the forehead.

The night continues in that fashion, Kara for some reason unbeknownst to them managing to win just about every game they play that doesn’t depend on sheer dumb luck, until Alex’s watch beeps, interrupting them in the middle of their ninth round of Carcassonne.

“Well gang, it’s 22:30 and me and Vasquez have handball practice bright and early in the morning so we’d better hit it. Not to mention Kara here still has to finish her homework.” Alex stands up, brushing off her sleeping pants as the other girls follow suit. They clean up their space and exit the small storage area, Alex locking the door behind them and tucking the lanyard back into her shirt as they begin the short walk back to their dorm building.

“So what does D.E.O. actually stand for?” Kara pipes up, after a few steps.

“Department of Extranormal Operations. We’re an international, secret, undercover government organization tasked with monitoring and protecting the Earth from extraterrestrial presence and/or invasion. And that means you.” Vasquez answers, face a mask of stone.

Kara gulps.  

Vasquez bursts into laughter a moment later and Alex shoves her away.

“Don’t listen to her, Kara. That’s just some movie shit she memorized cause she’s a weirdo. Plus like I said, she’s obsessed with the idea that he government is secretly fighting aliens or something. She just loves that encounters of the third kind shit.”

“Okay, firstly, Danvers, aliens are definitely real and definitely on Earth which means that the government is definitely fighting them. Look how bad we are at tolerance; we can’t even accept people of different color or religions or sexualities or genders yet you expect those dusty, old, white boys to accept a whole ‘nother race? Not happening.” Vasquez counters.

“Maggie, please back me up on this.” Alex begs, clearly having heard this many times before.

“Nuh uh, I’m with Vasquez on this one.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t real, I just don’t think they’re on Earth! Why the hell would they want to come to this shitty planet anyway?” Alex counters.

“Maybe they’re refugees of a planet ravaged by war or imperialism.” Kara offers.

(Or maybe their planet was destroyed and they had no other choice.)

“Your roommate makes a good point, what have you got to say to that one, Danvers?” Lucy chimes in.

“Whatever, four against one isn’t fair and you guys all suck.” Alex mutters, kicking at a rock on the pavement.

Lucy laughs, “as for your earlier question, sunshine, that’s a long story for another day.”

That seems to crack the rest of the group up, clearly an inside joke from before Kara’s time here.

“Bit late for a stroll isn’t it, girls?” a sharp voice cuts through their laughter, emerging from seemingly out of nowhere.

“Oh shit.” Vasquez says under her breath.

Oh shit is right.

The woman that steps out of the shadows is tall, almost unbelievably so, and not tall in that kind of gangly, awkward way that’s all limbs but in the kind of way where she knows exactly how much space her body takes up. Fights and presses and pushes her shoulder back and up in order to take up even more. She unfolds herself from the night, all angles and sharp edges, bones just that much more striking, as if hers serve more of a purpose than anyone else’s. Like they’re not just there to keep her upright they’re there to make a point. She’s clad in all inky blacks so dark they could be blue, hair wrapped in a tighter bun than Kara knew was possible. It’s painful just to look at, the way it stretches her skin over her features in a manner that looks like it aches. Maybe that’s why her expression is turned up, grimacing at nothing in particular.

Or perhaps, grimacing at the five students she’s just caught out past curfew.

“Evening, Headmistress Luthor.” Lucy swallows, first to regain her bearings and addressing the intimidating woman for the lot of them.

**_Luthor?_ **

“What are we doing out past curfew, girls?” She questions, inspecting her already immaculate nails.

Lucy gulps, “Well, uh, funny story,” she chuckles nervously, stalling for time as she begins to flounder, “you see, the thing is--”

“I lost my key!” Kara jumps in before she knows what she’s doing, and all heads whirling towards her.

“Excuse me?” is the headmistress’ sharp response, looking down her nose at Kara.

“I lost my key. I must have dropped it when I was walking back from classes earlier because when I got back to my room and took my shower I couldn’t find it and I was like whaat? That’s crazy! Especially because I’m not usually so forgetful and I have such a high regard and respect for school property and that’s when I realized that I hadn’t had it since I got out of classes earlier. so I’m obviously freaking out and looking everywhere for it when it hit me! I spent some time sitting in the grass after natural sciences so it must have slipped out of my pocket and I must have lost it then so then I asked the girls for help to go look for it because these keys are super expensive to replace and that’s why we had to go now so that an animal didn’t wander off with it or something and it didn’t seem safe to go out looking for it in the dark alone. And see? We found it!” Kara lies, biting down on her tongue and shoving her key forward as if this somehow validates her obviously bullshit story.

“And that took four of my prefects, did it?” the older Luthor woman asks skeptically, crossing her arms in disbelief.

“Golly, aren’t they just the best? They totally didn’t all have to come out here and help me and lose sleep over it but I guess you’ve just taught them so well that they didn’t even mind. You truly do set a great example, Ms. Luthor.”

“It is Headmistress Luthor to you. Ms. Luthor is my husband’s daughter.” She sharply corrects, still not completely believing Kara but having no evidence to prove her a liar.

“Of course, forgive me, Headmistress Luthor. I’m new.” Kara answers sheepishly.

“And what is your name, child?” the tall woman says back, taking a step forward and towering over Kara.

“Siobhan!” Vasquez throws in quickly before Kara can answer, stepping in front of her, “Her name is Siobhan Smythe.” And if Kara didn’t have super hearing she probably wouldn’t have been able to hear Alex snickering behind her.

The headmistress gives them an acidicly sweet smile, seemingly satisfied, “Well, you best be back to your dorms then. I’ll be seeing you, Siobhan.”

“Right away, Headmistress Luthor.” Kara beams, and they all practically sprint the rest of the way to their building, hands plastered over their wicked smiles to keep the laughter at bay.

Once inside though, all the girls make eye contact with each other and that’s enough to have them peeling with laughter.

“Oh my god, she’s so scary!” Lucy exclaims, hand clutching her heart.

“Jesus Christ, I thought she was gonna kill us.” Maggie chimes in.

“God, lost your key? I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk since meeting you, Kara.” Alex adds between laughs.

“That’s it, you are an official member of the D.E.O., Kara. Guard it’s secret with your life, I’m getting you a key and a t-shirt and everything.” Vasquez tells her after she manages to regain her breath, clapping a hand on her shoulder and smiling widely. Kara can’t help the stupid happy grin that breaks out across her own face in response.

“Okay, that was enough excitement for one night. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Goodnight, Danvers.” Maggie tells them, wiping a tear from her eyes as she makes her way down the hall to her dorm while Alex watches on wistfully.

After some teasing from Vasquez at the look on Alex’s face they all slowly drag themselves upstairs to their designated rooms, eager to make their time together last longer yet also craving sleep, until finally it’s just Kara and Alex sliding under their big maroon comforter.

“Your friends are nice.” Kara whispers, still smiling as she snuggles and presses her face into Alex’s back.

“And your nose is cold,” Alex murmurs, around a yawn. “Also they’re your friends too.” she adds as an afterthought, falling into a contented sleep merely moments after with Kara not far behind her.

Kara has no nightmares that night, instead flashing and floating through all too familiar shades of green that she can’t seem to nor wants to escape from. It’s a strange dream, and unbeknownst to Kara, three floors down Lena Luthor also wakes the next morning with thoughts of unforgettable, otherworldly eyes swirling through her mind from the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's two updates in two days to make up for the fact that i never update regularly. enjoy and yell at me on tumblr if you feel so inclined @c1oud9


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